Playing "anti-war" games in Congress...

Wednesday was the day that the House Armed Services Committee marked up the 2008 U.S. Military Spending budget. So, we wanted to be there to remind our elected representatives that Americans do not want any more tax money spent to continue the immoral occupation of Iraq.

Now, you may remember what happend when we went to the 2007 Supplemental Military Spending bill in March... Although the hearing was supposed to be "open" , they filled the room with staffers so there were only 2 seats available to the public. CLICK HERE to see the video of the incident that ensued when the People were denied entrance. This time we were prepared for them to resort to the same tactic in order to keep us out, so we decided we would not even try to get into the hearing. A few of us just stood outside the hearing room in our PINK, tried to talk to Congresspersons, and sang a song a two. One of the women in our group, Lydia Vickers from Florida, got to talk to her representative for a couple minutes. Here is the video:




After being moved along by Capitol Police for singing, "Get us out of this wargame" we went over to the Seante side where Defense Secretary Gates and General Pace were
testifying about the 2008 Military Spending Budget. We were very visible in that hearing as we held up peace signs etc... several of us even walked up right behind the witnesses with messages such as "END THE WAR"!

Check out this video we filmed inside the hearing:



After lunch Lori, Liz, Janine and others went over to Veterans Affairs hearing that was to examine the President's Task Force on Returning Soldiers. CODEPINKers took a more solemn approach in this hearing, but did go up to to talk to representatives on the committee after the hearing was over. Here is a great pick of Janine and our Vets For Peace friend Jim: